


Gird Thou Thy Sword

by Anonymous



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Multi, Post-Curse of the Black Pearl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-10
Updated: 2009-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone on board the Black Pearl has to have a weapon, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gird Thou Thy Sword

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in 2004. No, that's not a typo; yes, it's being posted for [14 Valentines](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines) 2008\. I started posting teasers in 2004, talked about it with [Berne](http://www.ragnell.org/berne) in 2005 (long walks through a sunny London are the perfect way of tempting one back into a story, in case you were wondering), declared it evil and soul-sucking in 2006, stole two sex scenes from it for other stories sometime during 2007 (pirate!), and in January 2008, sent it off to [Berne](http://www.ragnell.org/berne) and [Melusina](http://fabu.livejournal.com) with instructions to play Dr. Frankenstein. If this story were a child, it would be in nursery school, would long since have learned to talk. I think it's time to let go. I think I'll miss this file on my hard drive.

Everyone on board the _Black Pearl_ has to have a weapon, of course. That's understood, seeing as the _Pearl_ is a pirate ship, and pirate ships, by nature, attack other ships, and in doing so, encounter resistance, thereby making a weapon of some sort as necessary as breeches. More, really, seeing as a man _could_ fight without breeches, although he'd have to protect his danglies from damage, and there is that story of the man in Tortuga who was in Jade Susan's, and those two fellows came in and—anyway, if a man's not a eunuch, he prefers to fight with breeches, thankyoueversomuchlove, but they're not _necessary_. A weapon is.

None of this solves the problem of Elizabeth Turner. Damn the girl. Women have no business being aboard pirate ships, except Anamaria, and she's a good man; and _blondes_ have absolutely no business being aboard pirate ships, even if she does have a body that looks just fine being sliced out of those corsets she hates so much; and the only daughter of the bloody governor of bloody Port Royal has _absolutely_ no bloody business being aboard _any_ pirate ship, especially not Jack Sparrow's beloved bloody _Black Pearl_!

"Jack," the wretched wench's bloody husband says, after Jack's third time explaining this to the pair of them at the top of his lungs, "Calm down. You'll give yourself an attack of apoplexy." Jack can only splutter and wave his hands in indignation. Apoplexy is a problem old men have—men like Mrs. Turner's esteemed father, who assuredly does have a weapon, a weapon that Bootstrap's son made, for the love of God, and neither of the Turners have a weapon made by anyone, having come aboard with only two days (or two weeks, aboard ship) worth of clothes, and Jack will shout at them until they understand this. They are on a _pirate ship_, and they _lack weapons_ (although not breeches, Jack notes, unfortunately), and this is an utterly unacceptable state of affairs, especially since Jack doesn't think that there are any affairs onboard, and no prospects of one, even for himself.

"Jack, take us to a forge, and _I'll_ make us weapons if you'll shut up about it!" the whelp finally snaps. Ah. This is excellent. The boy shows promise. Temper, offering solutions, and a willingness to acquire weapons. Splendid.

It takes two days to sail to Tortuga. In that time, the number of affairs onboard remains at zero. The Turners kiss only once that Jack can see. This irritates him. In all other respects, he is happier than he has been in recent months. He has the _Pearl_ back, and Bootstrap's son beside him, and a pretty woman nearby, even if she is married to another man, and he knows where all the rum is. There's really nothing wrong, except that Bootstrap's son and his wife have no weapons, but that will be fixed soon.

The forge in Tortuga is barely adequate to the task, according to Will, and Jack sweeps him a mocking bow, telling him that a master like himself should see this as an opportunity to demonstrate his skill, and goes off to The Black Cat to drown his sorrows. He is mourning that the Lord saw fit to spoil this particular part of the world by covering it with land, and Elizabeth Turner tags along after him.

She seems ill-at-ease in Tortuga. It's one thing to throw in your lot with pirates entirely, and know that there's no going back, and it's another to ally yourself with one in the heat of the moment as a way of making a point. And despite the two days onboard ship, Mrs Turner's skin remains pale and her hands unblistered. She doesn't belong in Tortuga, and she knows it. Even Will seems more relaxed about the shadows flitting about like the souls of all the sailors who've ever set off from this port and never returned. Of course, Will has the forge at his back, and she has nothing of the sort. She can't help her husband at his work, Gibbs is far better for that, and she can't find whores like Cotton (for some reason that Jack will never understand, a silent man is very attractive, apparently), and she can't drink like Jack, and Anamaria has stayed on the _Pearl_ to make sure that no idiot from another ship doesn't try to burn her to the waterline.

"I promised Will I wouldn't drink," she says when Jack orders rum for the both of them. He breaks off in mid-word and looks at her, astonished. His hands hover in the air for a moment, and he turns back to the barkeep and finishes his request, "and smalls for the lady." That all-important task complete, he examines the figure in the too-large blue coat next to him. She seems healthy enough, her skin glowing and even, her eyes bright, her hair still gleaming golden despite its fresh tangles, and he's not seen signs of brain fever while she's been on the _Pearl_. Odd, that, if her last remark is anything to go by. She blushes a little at his frank perusal, and says, "Anyway, I had a splitting headache after that night on the island, and I never want to go through that again."

"Wouldn't dream of makin' you disobey your lawfully wedded husband, love," Jack tells her, and to his surprise, he almost means it. "But if I do order you to drink, you will, seein' as I'm your captain now, and the captain is always obeyed. Let's get that straight first off."

"Only on board ship," Mrs Turner points out. "And the _Pearl_ is anchored miles away." She's wrong on both counts, but looks thoroughly smug. Jack narrows his eyes, but forbears to answer for the moment, as there is rum to be drunk, and Mrs Turner apparently will not be doing the drinking.

"One," he says, putting down the mug several swallows later, "Onboard or not, I am Captain Jack Sparrow, and you Mrs Turner. You'll kindly remember that, seein' as I saved your life—"

"I saved yours!"

Jack ignores her indignant squawk and continues, with as much dignity as he can muster, "and seein' as you've essentially thrown yourself at my mercy—please don't interrupt, Mrs Turner, especially if you're going to disagree—we'll not be quarrelling about the limits of my authority. Which, I might add, are non-existent. And two, the _Pearl_ is hardly miles away. She's half a mile at best, and I'd wager that if you climbed on the roof here, you'd be able to see her mizzenmast without trouble. And three, where I am, the _Pearl_ is, and I'll thank you to remember that." He tips the bottle of rum upwards and lets the sunshine within warm his throat.

"Jack?"

"That's Captain, Mrs Turner," Jack says automatically.

"You got me drunk, Jack. I think we can dispense with formalities," she says. Her hands are folded, her spine straight and her voice more society trained than any whore will ever be able to fake, and the incongruity of it all makes Jack chuckle.

"I've gotten everyone onboard the _Pearl_ drunk at one point or another, love. If that was all it took, anyone could call me ‘Jack,' and that wouldn't be right, now would it?" He grins, flashing teeth in the dim bar. The title of Captain is Jack's proudest accomplishment, and he won't surrender it easily. Even when he didn't technically have a ship to claim (he shudders in memory of watching Hector Barbossa, damn his eyes, sail away with his ship, twice), he was still a captain. Take the ship away from a captain, and you'll have a very angry captain, but you can't — that can't be how the saying goes. Jack knows Shakespeare and the Bible far more than anyone would think, or at least than anyone who hasn't seen the books tucked away in a chest in his cabin would think, but he tends to slip up on more ordinary language.

"What do we do now?"

"I finish this bottle, and a few others, and much further than that, I doubt we need to plan," he says, surprised that she needs to ask. Surely she understands what a man does in a tavern? Well, perhaps not, he concedes, remembering his few glimpses of her father. Such a man would hardly be likely to tell his daughter about the facts of life, assuming that he knows them himself, and judging by Will's deplorable conduct the last time he was here, Port Royal has a lamentable lack of true society. Shocking, really, in a navy town. Shocking.

"No, I mean, once Will finishes making us swords? Once we're back on the _Pearl_." Jack is surprised at how casually she thinks of herself and Will as an ‘us,' and then reminds himself that they're married. To each other, and seem very happy, even if they don't touch, which bewilders Jack.

"D'you love him?"

She blinks. "Yes." The answer is simple, and Jack is still unsatisfied, but knows better than to ask further. A girl who'd give up rum if her husband asked is clearly not the sort of girl to engage in a discussion of this sort. Jack can't think of _any_ kind of discussion that a girl like that would be an appropriate companion for, to be fully, completely, and absolutely honest, which Jack is only with himself and the _Pearl_.

"Well, then I shouldn't think you'd care. You're with him," he says, giving up on the bottle as empty. "And," he adds, gesturing to the man missing an eye who gave him such excellent service earlier, "I should think you'd know. _Riffle and pillage, plunder and loot_," he hums. "You taught me the song, y'know."

"I had never really thought about what that meant until you came to Port Royal," she says, looking at her hands. "_Riffle and pillage, plunder and loot_. You've killed men, haven't you?"

"And doubtless shall again," Jack agrees solemnly. The chit must know what being a pirate entails. She was betrothed to a commodore of the Royal British Navy (betrothed, not wedded, but betrothal counts nevertheless, even if she did do it to save the life of the man she eventually did marry, it counts, because damn it, Jack wants it to count, he doesn't want to have to explain to anyone what piracy is, although he's a pirate to the core—and a good man, he reminds himself; it was Bootstrap who taught him the difference and the ways they could coincide—there are still days and nights he hates his work, until the _Pearl_ tells him to sleep, and reminds him that it's all worth it for her) and saw the skeletons of hanged men at Dead Man's Point daily. She's not that much of a sheltered innocent; she's gotten drunk with Captain Jack Sparrow, and that divests a woman of any claim imaginable to innocence, especially if she engaged in the drinking as enthusiastically as the woman sitting next to him did.

"I don't know if I could kill a man," she admits, looking at the bottle that sits oh-so-temptingly at Jack's left elbow. "I mean, once I have a sword. And really know how to use it. I was lucky, last time."

"_What_?" Jack flails wildly and the bottle teeters on the edge. He pauses his careering thoughts for long enough to grab it. This conversation requires more and more liquid courage by the minute. Even the rum, smooth as billows, doesn't blur the edges of the shock. The _Black Pearl_'s newest crewmember does not know how to use a weapon, much less possess one, and is, furthermore, blonde, married to a charming young blacksmith, the only daughter of the governor of the city in the Caribbean that has caused Jack the most headaches over the last year, and the former fiancée of the commodore of the Royal British Navy who has confused Jack more than should be possible for a man who wears a wig. There is very little that Jack can see that is at all good about this situation. Nothing, in fact, except that she is a pretty blonde, and Jack has an eye for beauty, and that there is liquid courage available to him.

"You don't know how to use a sword," he says a moment later, when the bottle is standing straight and upright and half-full on the table and the imminent danger has been averted. He closes his eyes, but not fast enough to avoid the sight of Mrs bloody Turner nodding. Nothing to be done, then.

He drains the bottle and tosses some coins to the barkeep. The _Pearl_ will have good advice, and Jack knows he needs it. Maybe she'll advise him to sling the wench and her wretched husband off the mainmast. He's not sure if he'd take that advice, but he'd like to know that the _Pearl_ is at least as dismayed by this situation as he is.

She's not.

The _Pearl_ is infuriatingly calm about it. Lying in his berth, Jack points out all the problems inherent in the current state of affairs, including that there are no affairs, strictly speaking, involved, but the _Pearl_ seems more amused, especially by the last, than anything else. Jack decides that the _Pearl_ is enjoying the sensation of having a Turner on board again, and that there are two of them makes her even happier. This has distorted her judgment. Flirting always does.

Jack gives up on the whole mess as unsolvable for tonight, and sleeps, and when he sleeps, he dreams. He dreams of his beard being gripped and held, and the beads sliding off the braids to clatter on the deck of some ship, he can't tell if it's the _Pearl_ or not, only they're not beads anymore, they're bones, little fingerbones. His bones. And he looks up, and Bill's there, one hand clenched in Jack's beard, and his hand's all bony. The other hand, a whole one, is picking the little bones off the planks, and putting them together again, until he's got a full hand, and he tosses the hand to someone Jack can't see. He leans close to Jack and ties the braids in Jack's beard together in a neat, precise little bow and steps back, and there's a sword in his skeleton-y hand, and he cuts the knot, like some kind of Gordian thingy. The hairs that fall to the deck are long and blond and ringleted, and Jack looks a little more closely at Bill, only it's not Bill, it's his son, and they're not on a ship anymore, they're on That Damned Island (for so Jack calls it, even in his dreams), and Will's twirling a sword so fast it makes Jack's eyes water, and tears run down his cheeks, and when he looks down, away from the gleaming steel, he sees Elizabeth lying on the beach at his feet, her hair a carpet of gold more fine than sand. His tears are black pearls in the swirling curves of Elizabeth's hair. Empty oyster shells are stacked around her, gleaming with all the wet colours of sunset.

He looks up again, and Will's hand is Jack's hand, all bones—Jack can see the crooked little finger from smashing it his first day on board the _Milady Hawk_—and the sword is at his throat, and he lifts his chin, exposing his throat, and the sky opens, and pours down what Jack thinks is gold at first, and then realizes is rum. It stings his eyes, and the sword is still at his throat, and he opens his mouth, but it's not rum he tastes, but blood, and he hears Will shout, only he's impossibly distant, and he knows it's important whose blood it is, but he can't tell, because he can't taste anything, he can't feel anything at all, and he's all bones and bones, a skeleton, but alive, and there are skeletons walking toward him, and the earth's spitting them out, more and more, and the island is sliding further away, the palm trees trembling in the hazy smoke that's as thick as bread dough, and there's Elizabeth, and she's alone, and she _has no sword_.

Jack wakes with the taste of blood in his mouth, and it takes him a moment to realize that it's real and that it's his own. He's bitten clear through his lip. He breathes deep, once, twice, three times, and asks the _Pearl_ what on the seven seas is going on. The _Pearl_ doesn't answer. She could be asleep, of course, but Jack suspects that she's watching him. The _Pearl_ may love Jack, but sometimes, she takes too much gleeful pleasure in watching him try to escape an answer he already knows.

He turns over and determines to go back to sleep, but the image of Elizabeth Turner lying on a beach, her hair shining against the sand, and her blood falling out of the sky, seems painted on the insides of his eyelids. She may be infuriating (she is), and she may be young (and she is), and she may be more trouble than any other woman Jack's ever encountered (and that she is beyond doubt), but she's on the _Pearl_, and he's responsible for her, and damn it all, the _Pearl_ likes her. Jack glares at the picture he can't elude (never you mind how he does this with his eyes closed. Jack Sparrow—_Captain_ Jack Sparrow—is a man of many talents, most of them unrevealed, for which the civilized world may be thankful), and sits up.

He drags the sleepy, protesting young matron on deck, hands her Cotton's heavy saber, and drops to one knee. "Are you proposing, or shall I knight you?" Mrs Turner says, her hair bleached silver in the light of the three-quarters moon. Jack glowers, and spares a moment of pity for her. He knows what he looks like at the best of times (he's not vain, but any pirate has to be aware of the effect he creates), and he knows that this is not the best of times (anytime anywhere near a dream of skeletons for Jack is automatically defined as among the worst of times), and he suspects he knows what he does look like: terrifying. As if the _Pearl_ is still captained by a man so evil that Hell itself spat him back out. As if stealing that gold coin made his blood turn to lead and his soul to pitch darker and stickier than anything used to caulk the _Pearl_'s hull.

He turns her left foot slightly outwards and grips the lady's hips through her shift. "Jack!" she yelps. He ignores her. By her own admission, she doesn't know how to use the (large, shiny, and pointy) object she's holding in her right hand, and so he's in little danger. Little danger from the sword, at any rate—he may be in quite a lot of danger, from first, her left hand, perilously close to his cheek, second, from her hips and the thin cloth sliding over them, as he tries to settle the girl in an _en garde_ position, and third, from the young man with a moustache and an unbuttoned shirt standing a few feet away.

"That is my wife you're manhandling, you know," he says, and Jack can't tell yet if the boy's learned how to joke. He should find that out. Preferably before the sword in Will's right hand runs him through, considering that Jack knows full well that he bested Will once before purely by cheating and luck, and considering that he suspects he's used up his full allotment of luck in getting the _Pearl_ back and finding the Turners onboard, and considering Will knows about cheating in fighting now, he doesn't think that same stunt will work again. And considering how much value Will put on honor a year ago, and considering that he's gone and married the girl he was defending then and with whom Jack is in a compromising position now, and considering that Jack is sure the _Pearl_ is watching, he should start in discovering Will's sense of humour immediately.

"It's your wife who doesn't know how to use a sword," Jack says, springing to his feet. "Surprised at you, William, my boy. Marrying a woman without first testing her in swordplay?"

"I'd have married her if she couldn't hold a spoon," Will says. Jack hopes that's meant as a joke. He hopes harder when Will comes closer; he looks dangerous, the moonlight etching his eyes and mouth and the hollow at his throat black. The faint breeze that carries Elizabeth's—Mrs Turner's—scent on it makes her husband's shirt ripple, and the shadows under it shift. The boy's no longer a boy, Jack realizes, and there's clear proof only a few feet away about the man's profession and the exertion required in it. His throat is oddly dry. He needs rum. What's that Will's saying? "And if anyone teaches her swordplay, it'll be me, Captain."

"I'm the captain," Jack says, without really noticing what he's saying. His well-trained tongue is perfectly capable of carrying on a reasonably coherent conversation (but only reasonably coherent; Jack himself is often only capable of reasonable coherence, and expecting more from any individual body part is just unreasonable. Copious amounts of rum makes Jack more coherent to himself and the _Pearl_, less to anyone not also thoroughly lubricated by alcohol) while Jack himself is engaged in—what _is_ he doing? He'd like to know. It's not strictly necessary that anyone else know, probably preferable if they don't, but it makes him nervous when even he doesn't know what he's doing.

"You're a terrible swordsman," Will says, and Jack is surprised to see that he's moved a few feet closer, and that his own hands are still on Mrs Turner's waist, and she hasn't slapped him yet. Will takes the sword out of her hand and rests his hand on her shoulders. "While I'm not sure that three in the morning is the right time to start learning swordplay, if you insist, Captain, I will do my best. But I must insist that you not teach my wife that mockery of fencing—as successful as you may have found it." He presses on Elizabeth's shoulders and she finally slaps Jack's hands away and shrugs her husband's hand off.

"I _am_ right here, you two!" Elizabeth Turner is one of the few women Jack has ever known who looks beautiful even when furious. On the short list are Scarlett, Olivia, Su Ling, and that creature in Marseilles whose sex Jack still isn't sure about. Anamaria isn't included, because Jack's never seen her not angry (Anamaria has reason to be angry, he knows, and he doesn't blame her for the smoldering fury that lies always banked within her), and because he doesn't dare think of her as beautiful. That would be too complicated and messy even for Jack. "Stop touching me as if I'm some wax doll you can mold to your liking!" Jack's sure she's about to go on, and increase in volume, and he winces in anticipation, remembering That Damned Island, and the way she sang loudly and off-key until collapsing in the sand, but Will's voice cuts in, for which Jack is briefly gratified.

"Do you _want_ Jack teaching you, my dear?"

Very briefly.

"No," she says, and Jack is even less gratified.

"Well, then," Will says, and Jack might as well not be there as Will touches his wife in the darkness. His voice is even and low, and it seems as though it's never started, just always been, speaking slowly, "Bend your knees a little. Turn toward me a bit, and that's your basic position. Try to keep this as your form, lean forward a little, but you'll have to shift depending on the terrain you're fighting on, and your weapon, and your opponent. Always keep your knees bent. It's like dancing, really. Here, follow me. Mimic what I do, only in mirror image. Like dancing, Elizabeth. Dance with me, love, fight with me," and she does, as if in a dream, watching him, and if Jack ever doubted that they're in love, here's all the proof he needed.

They move across the _Pearl_'s deck like dancing, fighting phantoms, and prickles run along Jack's spine. The look on Will's face reminds Jack: of the boy's father, talking about a woman with curly black hair whom Jack never met, named Catherine; of the year-younger Will, talking about a beautiful blonde governor's daughter he'd die for. Will is constantly adjusting Elizabeth's position, and his voice is part of the creak of the timbers and the flap of the furled sails and the fluttering breeze, and the _Pearl_ is definitely awake and watching, and the air is warm, and the sea stretches for infinity.

Will steps back from his wife and lifts her arm. "Don't let your arm drop below your waist," he says. She nods, her eyes never leaving his face. "I love you," he says, "try to maintain this distance between us. When I lunge, step back. If I step back, sweetheart, lunge. Let your arm swing up naturally. Don't bring your back leg in front."

Jack leaves them to it and slips below, trusting that Will's talent can be transferred to his wife. The sense of urgency that drew him onto the deck at an hour properly used only for sleep or carousing has seeped away, soothed by Will's voice and the way he and Elizabeth were looking at each other. He sleeps again, and if he dreams, he doesn't remember it in the morning.

Will finishes the swords in less than a week, and they're beautiful. The hilt on Elizabeth's has an etched swan on the wrist guard, and the deep, triple-blood channels make it look flimsy, but when Jack picks it up, it's surprisingly heavy. He raises an eyebrow at the smith, whose grin would be infuriating on anyone else except himself and his father. Turners have that effect on Jack, and he thanks God that there have been only three in his life, and that he never met the fourth in existence. (He hasn't quite realized that Turners will most likely be forthcoming over the next few years.)

"No one will think that a woman can handle a heavy blade," Will explains. "And it's slim, so it looks lighter, and the triple channeling changes the way she cuts with it, and it'll all leave her opponent a little off-balance."

"I don't need a trick blade," Elizabeth protests, indignant and, yes, pouting, that full lower lip of hers wet in the Caribbean sunshine. Her skin has begun to warm, a few freckles appearing on the back of her neck (not that Jack has been examining her in any detail, that would not be the act of a gentleman—except that Captain Jack Sparrow is in no way a gentleman, and it is up to oneself to decide if he has in fact been examining Mrs Turner's transformation on board the _Black Pearl_, and given that Jack knows every bit of what is happening on his ship, it should be an easy decision) and she got her first splinter yesterday, and Jack is glad that she's spilled blood for the _Pearl_ even before they've left port.

"It's not a trick. It's confounding expectations," her husband says absently, picking up his own blade and handing it to Jack, the way his hands grip it more revealing than anything else, even the stark simplicity of the hilt and wrist guard. There's no decoration at all on it, in fact. This is a sword for killing with, or it would be, if it weren't perfectly balanced, and if Will's love for his work didn't dance along the edge of the blade, and if Jack didn't think there's more to the lack of personal adornment than simple utilitarianism.

When he asks, Will says, "I've never made a sword only for my own use before. It's an unnerving experience."

Jack doesn't ask further. He doesn't dare. If Will is having doubts about turning pirate, well, doubts are best confronted alone, and Jack knows Turners. If Will wants advice, he'll ask for it, and if he doesn't and Jack offers it anyway, no matter what he says, it'll explode in his face—Will's married, anyway. If he wants advice, he can ask his wife.

A wife. There is a wife on board the _Pearl_. Granted, her husband is along, and granted, she has a sword now, and granted, she was probably the one who wanted most to board the gangplank, and granted, Jack has no truck with superstitious claptrap (real curses, of course, he believes in wholeheartedly, given that—well, let's just take that as read, all right, love?), but still. Wives do not belong on board the _Pearl_, any more than blondes do!

Jack takes the first opportunity he can to ask Will about how Elizabeth convinced him to leave Port Royal. But this opportunity does not come for nearly a week, a week of shockingly bad weather (whenever the weather is bad, Jack takes it as a personal challenge) and daily fencing lessons for Elizabeth. She is quite good, having watched Will practice secretly for years and openly for six months, and despite having taught herself terrible habits of footwork in private, and although she'll never equal Jack's standard (of brazen, dazzling feats of derring-do or stupidity, depending on who's talking), she can hold her own, in a childishly bad sort of way. She'll learn. She'll have to. Jack has no intention of coddling her.

He can't afford to. The _Black Pearl_ is the last true pirate ship in the Caribbean—Commodore James Norrington, of His Majesty's Navy, has taken care of most of the others, and the Spanish commander Miguel Carlos Eduardo Hernandez y Àvila in the western islands has dealt with the ones Norrington missed. The other pirate ships are butchers with no style, and if there's one thing Jack abhors (there are many), it's boredom. He can't have someone on board the _Black Pearl_ without style.

He also can't have someone on board who can't hold her own. It's rather a good thing that Elizabeth is pretty, actually (far more than pretty, he has to admit, far more); makes life more interesting and gives her an advantage in fighting. Jack doubts that any man could resist the way she smiles as she's about to slam her blade home. (Will sighs every time she does that, but Gibbs points out that she'll never learn proper fencing and she'll never need it. All she has to do is disarm her opponent and she'll be fine. Classical swordplay might get her killed, in fact, and Will winces at the thought, his face tightening. No one else on the _Pearl_ has Will's expertise, and they don't need it. That's _his_ advantage—no one on the other ship will, either.)

Battles used to be civilized. You used to board a ship and the captain knew to hand over the keys to the cargo, request that you leave enough food and grog for his sailors, and offer you a drink in appreciation for excellent technique in swinging across onto his ship. Now, every merchant vessel has an armed escort and her own guns, and it's just not as much _fun_ anymore. Jack wishes sometimes that he could retire, except that there would be no more true pirates left, and he doesn't like to think of the Caribbean without piracy in it.

One night, with the wind singing outside his porthole and Cobb on the helm and Wagner buffeted in the crow's nest, he asks the _Pearl_ if Will could succeed him as captain. She's not sure. Neither is he, to tell the truth. If he did, it couldn't be for a few years, God knows, and they might have to get a different crew first, so the memory of the painfully naïve and—Jack can't help but add the word—_stupid_ boy he helped win his ladylove last year wouldn't interfere with the command. And what to do with Elizabeth? This is all assuming that Will even wants to be captain—his father was never interested in such.

But his father left Catherine to wait for him forever in England, and Will and Elizabeth are on board together, which brings Jack back to the question of why the daughter of the governor of Port Royal, who could have been Mrs Commodore James Norrington, and the blacksmith, the pirate's son, not only got married, to which Jack has come to believe the romantic answer, but also ran away and joined Captain Jack Sparrow, scourge of the Caribbean, commander of the _Black Pearl_, the most fearsome pirate on all the seven seas of the world, who has (it must be said) a fascinating legend and who has (it must be said) nearly gotten both of them killed, although he will claim to the end of his days, however distant they may be, that the commodore shares some of that responsibility.

Will shrugs when he asks. "Brown died. The bank took the forge. Elizabeth was sick of being pitied for marrying me. Port Royal was glad to see the last of us."

Jack waits him out. A year older doesn't mean much at that age—another reason it would take a few years and several voyages before Will could captain, and Jack's rather glad to discover that; he doesn't want to give up the _Pearl_ that quickly—and Will's not learned how to shut up entirely.

It's not a skill that many sailors know, but captains need it. It's not a skill that one would associate with Jack Sparrow, but it's one that he learned from the late lamented William Philip Turner, Esq., may his soul rest in peace. Asking questions isn't always the best way to get answers.

Jack waits him out. "After you nearly died there, and I was ready to go with you, it just…" Will bites his lip. "They don't know the difference," he says.

"The difference?"

"Between a pirate and a good man." Jack grins, relieved. It's something that simple; well, Will never was the cleverest of men, with no talent for subtlety at all, which is something else he'll have to learn, even if he'll never have the same talent that Jack has for it, which is, strictly speaking, not a talent, but a positive genius, and Will would be the type to marry the girl he's been in love with since he was eleven (Jack can't even remember being eleven) and learn something and let it take over his life. (Jack doesn't think about how he waited ten years for the _Black Pearl_ to find her way back to him, or what he said to Bill when he first saw her half-built in the docks. That's not the point.)

Jack springs to his feet and drops a hand on Will's shoulder. "That's all right, then," he says. "I know the difference. I taught it to you, after all. Have a kip there ‘till it's your watch, and I'll send your lady wife to you, eh?" Ordinarily, he'd leer, but this is William's son, and he looks so much like William that Jack hasn't unlearned the lesson of _don't leer about William's wife_ entirely.

It's only after he's been on deck, sent Elizabeth below ("only ‘till the end of the watch, mind you, love, and don't get up to anything that Anamaria couldn't catch you at"), checked the bearing, beetled his brows at Gibbs (he's not sure what this is, but he's sure that he does it), and stolen a taste of the stew for the next meal, that he thinks that maybe Will wasn't done talking when he left. That maybe he should've waited him out longer; that maybe Will waited him out instead of the other way around.

The next day, the last of the foul weather blows away, and Jack thinks that perhaps their luck is blooming anew. He becomes more certain of it, when Cobb in the crow's nest shouts down that he sees a ship to the northeast. No colors showing, two masts, figurehead a horse. A heavy-keeled little thing, a merchant vessel if Jack's ever seen one, and since Jack is a pirate, he's seen many. It's a merchant vessel, and he orders preparation for a raid to begin.

The decks are cleared, the cannons readied, and Gibbs at the wheel when Elizabeth comes up to Jack, with a look on her face that he doesn't like. "No," he says, before she opens her mouth. "You'll follow orders, by God, Turner."

"Aye, aye, captain," she says. "It's just—"

"Just piracy as usual, love," he says, and flaps a hand, dismissing her. She doesn't move. "And your orders are to remain at the second larboard cannon," he says with exaggerated patience.

"Its colors aren't flying," she says.

He blinks with patently false surprise. "Well, shiver me timbers and strike me bones, so they aren't. Does this offend your sense of style? We'll make sure to run up our own flag as soon as we board, which we can't if you don't man your cannon, Turner. Get below."

"Jack!"

"One. That's _Captain_ Sparrow, Turner. Two. Get. Below. That's an order." Jack turns away, but she grabs his sleeve. Her cry has drawn attention from Anamaria, who has been invisibly wondering if Jack will favor Mrs Turner, with her mad dreams of the ocean, over her own methodical skill with a tiller, and who is now watching intently, rope coiled in her hands. If he loses Anamaria, he's lost Gibbs, he knows, and Cotton, and Shrimp, and probably Wagner and Cobb and he can't afford that.

"Jack, they aren't flying colors," she repeats. "That may be an _English_ vessel."

"It's a merchant vessel, Turner," he says, yanking his sleeve free of her grasp. "Money knows no nationality. Gold is no patriot. Get below." Anamaria, he sees out of the corner of his eye, has turned away with a smirk. Elizabeth hasn't moved. "If it's an English vessel, the captain will understand what I say even faster," he snaps. "If it's French, Anamaria will tell them what to do, although I should hope they'd know already. If it's Spanish, well, Gibbs can swear at them a bit. Get below, unless you wish to mutiny, Turner!"

Elizabeth flees belowdecks, and Jack feels a brief shiver of pride in his continued ability to frighten sailors who don't have hearts like raided treasure chests, replaced almost instantly by a sense of shame in shouting at an unblooded child. Elizabeth has not proven herself yet, and she didn't entirely deserve that display of temper. He quashes the thought and moves to the wheel.

The wind is coming from the northwest corner, and he and the _Pearl_ ease themselves into it, until they're tight up against the other ship's side. The _Pearl_ is tense under his hand, waiting until the opportune moment. Jack seizes the bullhorn and shouts across, swaying a little with the sense of power he always has at the beginning, before the fighting starts. He doesn't _like_ fighting, truth be told. That's why he's not very good at it; that's why he cheats.

The captain of the other ship, whatever its nationality, the name is on the other side of the hull, and Jack doesn't care anyway, it's Turner's pernicious influence that's making him check, what's the chit doing in his head at this stage in the game, and it is a game, by God, love, he makes a gesture that needs no translation. Jack throws back his head and laughs. "You'll need more than that to beat Captain Jack Sparrow!" he yells, and waves his hand elegantly in the air, Elizabeth's father would be impressed at the delicacy of the gesture, a musician's or a courtier's hands, but it prompts the deep staccato cough of the cannon, and the _Pearl_ arches against the kickback.

The balls smash through the air and tear into the other ship's rigging and hull. Smoke drifts upward, acrid and dense. Anamaria yells, as the other sailors ready their attack. They look startled as they always do when they realize her alto is not the product of an unfortunate accident in youth, but a woman on board. Jack sees a few cross themselves (Jack has always believed that any god liable to pay attention to sailors would be apt to have a sense of humor; not the sort of interest one would want to attract), and then bend to their task again.

The _Pearl_ will take anything for Jack, and he for her. She shudders under the impact of iron balls and the whistle of grapeshot and the ache of ripping sailcloth. Jack clenches his jaw. "There, there," he whispers. "I'll make it better, love, don't you worry," and goes on crooning soothing nonsense a moment longer, and then her guns boom again, drowning his voice out. She can hear him anyway, she always can, but her focus is outward now, and so is his, squinting against the bright sunshine and the grit of the smoke in his eyes. He can count the other ship's cannon—twelve, and they're bigger than the _Pearl_'s, and they're being loaded, just as the _Pearl_'s guns are.

Jack has the better crew, and isn't that lucky? The little merchant vessel suffers naught but destroyed rigging and one downed mast, just enough to cripple her, but not enough to leave her incapable of limping to whatever port is nearest. Jack doesn't like leaving men in the midst of an ocean that can be as capricious as his own ladylove, but he hates having those who don't _belong_ on his ship there.

It turns out to be a moot point—the crew fight back, damn them, and soon the little sloop's deck is scarlet-slick and smells of human pain, thick in the hot air. Jack wouldn't take any one of these sailors, a ragtag bunch, sullen when the _Pearl_'s crew finally manages to pin them against the stern. The captain is the one with the Chinese brand on his cheekbone, and it's only when Jack himself, skin dark and grimy with gunsmoke, holds a knife to his throat that he hands over the keys to the hold.

"Wise decision, mate," Jack says, dangling them from the tip of a finger. "Was about to set fire to your britches."

The captain doesn't react, and Jack decides not to bother trying to figure out what language would mean something to this man. He spins and leaves the group of battered sailors clustered against the rails, clattering down the rickety stairs into the hold, where he and Gibbs start sorting through the prize.

Enough grog, of poor quality (not that Jack is a snob, oh no), to last a few weeks, some lumber (Jack sneers at the stacked timber, and Gibbs swears between his teeth), half-a-dozen chests of gunpowder (they hoist that up on deck and hear Cotton's parrot squawk ‘All hands to the deck! All hands to the helm!' and decide that means to get the chests across to the _Pearl_), and three trunks full of papers.

"Bloody useless," Gibbs mutters. He holds the top sheet an arms-length away from himself and squints at it in the dim light filtering down the stairs. "Not even English," he announces.

"What is it?" Jack is occupied in searching through the corners behind the stacked planks, appalled to think that sailors would fight for timber. Standards have slipped, indeed, if that is the case, and Jack deplores slipping quality in sailors much more than he does in rum — rum, good or bad, will get you just as drunk, but bad sailors, sailors without a sense of, well, without a dash of dastardly, cunning, braggartly _piracy_ in them, are insipid, useless creatures, not fit for the ocean at all. There are puddles of stale seawater, a few rats, and some burned-out candles, nothing more. Jack bares his teeth, much like his (please-god-dead) namesake, and spits.

"How the hell should I know?" Gibbs demands.

"Bloody useless, you are," Jack says without heat. He snatches the broadsheet from Gibbs and examines it. "Bloody useless _it_ is," he amends, and gives it up as a bad job.

"Kindling?"

"Bugger kindling." Jack stomps up the stairwell, and the first thing he sees is Will, flicking the buttons off the captain's coat with the point of his sword. His hair is hanging loose around his face, and his shirtsleeve is ripped. He's whistling between his teeth in tune to the _ping_ of the buttons on the deck. The captain looks more appalled at this desecration than he did at the loss of his ship.

"Next time you're captured," Will says, "at least have the courtesy to hand over the keys to your own cabin, where you keep those coded documents you're bringing from Brazil, as well as the keys to the hold. Captured does not mean that you've won, mate."

"Coded documents?" Jack blurts.

"Well, they're in a locked chest and every word, which is in no language I've ever seen, is four letters long." Will shrugs, and starts on the captain's braided uniform. His left epaulet droops, making him look almost rakish, and slightly ravaged. Something twitches deep inside Jack, and thinks _mine_. "And Anamaria said the logbook looks ‘sthough the coordinates start in Brazil." He flicks off the first button of the man's breeches, and Jack knows just how good with a sword Will is, and still his entrails clench within him. Will glances over his shoulder. "Oh, relax, Jack," he says.

"Right." Jack nods. "Where are these damned coded papers?"

"Over the rail and on the _Pearl_ already," Anamaria says, from behind his shoulder. "Make decent stuffing if'n we want it." Paper is a rare thing in the Caribbean and most of what ends up on pirate ships turns into stuffing for the guns and cones for gunpowder. Sailors don't often know how to read, much less write, and pirates are the scum of the earth, according to common wisdom, which Jack considers is neither very common nor very wise, but he does have to admit that fewer pirates can read than can't. He nods, privately resolving to take a look at the papers before they're ripped up or the rats get them.

"Right," he says.

Right. The _Pearl_ is waiting none-too-patiently, and Jack himself has no more patience for the wood belowdecks or the captain abovedecks. Elizabeth is waiting, too, and Jack hasn't noticed before that she's become ‘Elizabeth' instead of ‘Mrs Turner'. Amazin' what the mind comes up with, suspended above the ocean by a piece of rope that looks like spiderweb, no matter how many times he's hung like this; he's never hung any other way (though he's come closer than he likes to admit more times than he likes to admit; he plays it close to the chest now; the stories are all true, even the ones he tells, even those, they're just never what really happened).

The thud of his boots on the deck is not like coming home, it _is_ coming home. His heart is back in place, he thinks.

Elizabeth is crouched by the wheel with linen piled next to her. It's hard to tell, her shift is so sooty with cannon smoke and crusted with salt, and her hair hangs in a tangled mass — she'll have to cut it off entirely soon — but her shoulder is crimson and wet. So are her hands, the left with its filagreed gold ring and the pale scar across the palm; the scar she shares with her husband and her captain. Her right hand is pressing linen to her wound, and red blood is seeping through. It's the only colour Jack can see in the entire ocean, and he can't move.

He can't move.

He can feel every bone in his hands.

The sea spray tastes of salt and copper.

He leaves Will and Anamaria picking splinters out of Elizabeth's shoulder—a cannonball blew a hole in his ship _yet again_ and the shards of wood went through her coat—and stares at the bottles of rum stacked up in his cabin. Cotton has brains even if he hasn't a tongue.

Cotton has no tongue (got his tongue cut out); Jack has no past (man's a legend doncha know); Anamaria has no child (new moon waxing and I lost her); Will has no father (you knew my father, _and I didn't_ left unspoken): no one on this ship is whole. Jack has never quite understood what the _Pearl_ needs, but he'll search as long as he has to, in order to find it.

Jack curls up like a cat (monkey) in his hammock and starts squinting at the papers. Ten minutes later, he's decided that it's a code and he does not want to decipher it, and Jack Sparrow doesn't do anything he doesn't want to, savvy? There must be some other explanation as to why he's still at it a watch and a half later, but he can't think of one when Anamaria knocks on his door and opens it without even a breath's-space between. "She'll be fine," she says, and Jack nods. Whether it's because he can't speak for the sharp tang of bile in his throat at the thought that she might not have been (there's no one else Anamaria could have been speaking of), or because he's no more affected by the news than he would be if it were anyone else on board (except Will himself, and isn't that interestin', love?), only Jack Sparrow knows, and Jack Sparrow doesn't tell, savvy?

"Dismal bloody failure," Anamaria says, and Jack nods again, realizing afresh just how much of a dismal bloody failure that raid was. It happens; but Jack never likes it when it happens. When Captain Jack Sparrow is dissatisfied with a raid, all the merchant ships on the Caribbean might as well surrender their goods at once.

Might as well, but they never do, and Jack's almost glad of it—the best way to wash his mouth clean of the sour taste of failure is with success; more than that, shining, glorious, inspired success, and you can't have that if there's no threat of failure, can you now?

You cannot.

So it's all for the best that they run across the _Lionesse_ the next day, really. It is! The _Lionesse_'s captain and crew don't agree, in all likelihood, but when has Jack Sparrow ever cared about likelihood?

They drink that night, drink an entire cask of grog dry; they drink to Jack Sparrow's genius, to the Turners, to the memory of that _bloody_ monkey, to Tortuga whores, to Gibbs's Jenny, to Will's late lamented mother, to Elizabeth's, to the demon that spawned the captain — Cobb lets out an unholy cackle at Anamaria's words — to every god that ever was or ever shall be, to the captured chests of silk and casks of molasses, to the man who invented rum, to the _Black Pearl_ herself.

Jack wakes at six bells with no aftereffects whatsoever, thankseversolove, more than can be said for Will, although he is impressed, again, at Elizabeth's clear gaze and steady hands. "Better go aloft, love," is all he says, and watches as she scrambles up the lines.

Jack Sparrow has a good eye — he can see a ship before it's more than a smudge on the horizon, assess a whore's talents from fifty paces, choose real gold from gilding and pocket it before the merchant in question has a chance to protest, and, obviously, his narrowed gaze at Elizabeth's legs is nothing more than a further example of this trait. Obviously.

All the same, he's rather glad that Will's a trifle occupied with trying not to move his skull and splash seawater on his temples at the same time. "Ummmph," Will moans, and Jack doesn't bother hiding the grin.

"Not meant to be in your cups often, lad," he says, throwing an arm around Will's shoulder's and ruffling his hair, and Will fixes him with a squinting glare which would be much more fearsome if he didn't turn slightly green immediately afterwards.

"Not fair to mock the dying," he mumbles.

"Give it a few hours, some sea breezes and a good round with Elizabeth, and you'll be —" Jack begins to promise, when Will pales even more and stands, staggering a little. His gaze is riveted upwards, and Jack glances up.

Little need. Elizabeth's caught in the traces only twenty feet above their heads and the ropes there aren't meant to hold weight, even as little weight as a blonde chit like Elizabeth. "Elizabeth!" Will shouts.

"Oh, bloody _hell_," Jack says. _Now_ he has a headache. "Shut up," he says, and starts tugging carefully on the ropes nearby, glancing overhead as he tries to roll her closer to the mast, so he can clamber up and get her down without killing her. Elizabeth screams as the ropes shift under her. "Not funny," Jack snaps. The _Pearl_ shakes herself, and Jack glares at the polished brass at his feet. "_Not funny_," he repeats, and jumps for a loop of hemp that wasn't there thirty seconds before and won't be there five minutes later. He balances carefully, twisting rope around his ankle and wrapping it over his forearm, and manages to stretch to brush his fingertips over Elizabeth's shoulder. "You'll be just fine, lovely," he says, hoping that he isn't lying too much.

Elizabeth's voice is tight with fear. "I don't know what happened," she whispers, and gasps as the wind makes her sway.

"Don't worry about it," Jack says. He'll worry about it, he means. His hands move over the tangle of ropes and slowly he gets them unsnarled; the trouble is, the slackening means that Elizabeth's weight is being entrusted to fewer and fewer of them. He stops. "Grab a rope," he says. "I can't reach you. Hold tight."

Elizabeth inhales, and tips her head back to look at him upside-down. "Don't you get me killed, Jack Sparrow," she says, her eyes sharp as a dagger's point. She smiles, although he can see the effort it costs her, and digs her nails into the nearest rope. Her palm will be raw, but it's better than having every bone in her body broken, and he yanks on the knot.

Elizabeth wraps her shaking, bandaged hands around a second cup of rum, her breathing still shallow, and shakes her head. "No," she says again. "I just put my foot on a spar, and suddenly I was falling."

Will's hand tightens on her shoulder. His fingers are wound tight in her hair, as if to tether her to his side. He still looks ill, but it might not be due to the rum's aftereffects anymore. Jack is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in this case, which is uncommon generous of him, really; Jack Sparrow isn't careless about his beliefs. "Is there still," Will says, but Jack ignores him. He slams the door behind him.

"Don't do anything I won't be able to walk in on," he shouts through the wood, and scrambles up the mainmast before either the whelp or his wife can respond. He perches on the second crosspiece and dangles his feet. "Could've killed her," he says to the horizon.

"Oh, don't sulk," he says a few moments later.

"_Yes_, dammit, I like her," he says. "It's not every day that we've a beautiful girl on board who's already risked her life for us once — all right, it is, but I didn't know Anamaria had until I got her drunk, months later, and I still say I could've escaped just fine without her harebrained scheme."

"That's not the point."

He climbs down, wanders over to the railing and watches the _Pearl_'s wake stream out behind them. "Don't do it again," he says, soft, and swallows. "Don't make me choose, love."

The salt on his face must be ocean.

He rubs his hands over his skin and pinches the bridge of his nose. He doesn't knock before going back in the cabin. Will and Elizabeth don't jump apart. They don't even notice. Will's hands are still twined in Elizabeth's hair, but his head is thrown back, his shirt half-undone, and colour stains his cheeks. His breathing is harsh and rasping, almost as if there's a hurricane in his chest, and he looks — dare Jack say it? of course he does, he's _Captain Jack Sparrow_ — downright piratical.

He also looks really rather beautiful.

Elizabeth, well, Elizabeth always looks rather beautiful, so that's hardly a shock. What is a shock is the expression of pleasure on her face as she presses open-mouth kisses to Will's thigh, the brief flash of tiny teeth and the wet traces she leaves behind. Neither of them notices Jack leaning against the door, mouth slightly agape (although he'll never admit this, mind you, you were dreamin', _you_ might have been affected suchlike, but not the great Jack Sparrow). And whoever would have thought that Jack Sparrow would ever be content to watch?

No one, and for once, they'd be right. He isn't. He steps a bit closer, and Elizabeth glances at him, and then deliberately turns her gaze back to the crease of Will's hip and the jut of bone there, sucking on the point, leaving what will be a bruise the color of plums in a few hours, and rubbing her cheek along the wet skin, as if to soothe. Even watching it is precisely contrary to such an effect; Jack can almost feel the bones in his body grind together as he tries not to reach toward the two of them, against every instinct he's ever fostered.

The sound that breaks out of Will's throat is closer to pleading than Jack's ever heard from him, even when the point of a sword hovered an inch away from his left eye. Elizabeth smiles against his skin and her teeth latch down again; Jack can almost taste the salt flesh, and he licks his lips. His mouth is dry. Elizabeth's isn't. Will's skin is wet from her tongue, and her lips gleam when she smiles. There's colour in her cheeks again; you'd never know that half-an-hour ago, she was plummeting through the breeze. When she pushes herself up, she sways a little, though, and catches herself on Will. His hands slip onto her waist and rest against the flare of her hips.

Jack clears his throat. Will tears his gaze from the apparently fascinating view of Elizabeth's cheekbone and throat and, well, well, it is possible for a bosom to heave, whoever would have credited it? "I _told_ you two—" he begins, but stops when Elizabeth lifts her head, arrogance in every line of her jaw and neck, like a queen (pirate queen).

"It's your cabin, Jack," she says softly. "You don't have to knock. But you can't touch."

"And you can't watch," Will adds.

That seems to take care of most of the possibilities, Jack thinks gloomily, and steps back to slump against the door. He shuts his eyes in frustration, trying to think how he came to this pass, how to get these two out of his cabin so he can — wait.

He can't watch. And he can't touch. But he doesn't have to knock.

Oh.

He lets out a breath and presses his spine against the door. Behind his eyelids, he can see Elizabeth's fingers hooked into the rope holding up Will's trousers, run his gaze over the arch of Will's spine as he leans forward like a drunkard in a high wind (Elizabeth's sweat is better than rum, her gasps more powerful than a hurricane's gusts) to latch his teeth against the fleshy bud of Elizabeth's ear.

He knows he's right, because Elizabeth is murmuring as the rope bites into the skin of her palm, because he can hear Will's bones creak as he moves, and because he's Captain Jack Sparrow. The _Pearl_ is watching, too, and she tells him everything in the low throb of her heart behind her ribs.

She hasn't been forbidden. Jack spares a fleeting moment to wonder if Will or Elizabeth even thought of the _Pearl_'s eager, greedy gaze, and decides he doesn't care. If they did, then they've come to an accord about her, and if they didn't, he's not goin' to be the one to remind them, savvy? He rests a hand on the splintery wood of the cabin-door, feeling the light prick of familiar grooves in the planks, his fingers trembling as he tries not to grip too bruisingly. She's restless under his fingers, silent for once, excited and hopeful, and Jack clenches his jaw at what she's not whispering to him.

Will and Elizabeth, Elizabeth and Will, and they're touching each other, and Jack's breath catches in his throat at the wet sounds of their mouths and the _shush-shush_ of the waves against the _Pearl_, the salt slap of _aqua vitae_ against glistening, swollen flesh. "You—" he says, not sure of how he'll finish the sentence, but suddenly Elizabeth's mouth is on his.

"Hush," she says, and laughs. "Hush, Captain." She bites his lower lip once, and then she's gone, and Will's hand is on his throat.

He doesn't press against the veins there. He doesn't move at all, but Jack's suddenly very aware of the breath caught in his lungs, like breeze trapped in twisted canvas. "Thought," he manages to say, although his voice is rough, "I couldn't touch."

Will nods, and Jack knows this because he's opened his eyes. He's staring right into Will's, and he doesn't understand what he can see there. Will nods again. "You're not touching," he says. "I'm touching. I can touch." He leans forward and licks a stripe up Jack's throat. "I can," he says, his lips only a breath away from Jack's skin and his own hand, which hasn't moved, its pressure not lessening nor increasing, "do anything I want."

Elizabeth grabs hold of his wrist and rests her fingers on the blood vessels under the thin skin between the bones. "Pirate," she says. "I only fall in love with pirates, Jack." He closes his eyes again in frustration. She kisses the knuckles on his scarred hand. "Pirates who follow no rule of law," she says against his palm and the faint scar there, and laves the scar tissue with her tongue. "Save their own."

"Yes," Will says.

The world has been distilled down to such small things as single syllables, the touch of Elizabeth's lashes against the hollow of his palm, the point where the Pearl cradles his skull.


End file.
